Hi,

Would someone be kind enough to comment on this...

What could be wrong with my CD music recordings that each time a selection ends I always hear (by earphone) a faint CLICK sound. The Intro is good & clean, but not the end part! I don't hear this click while listening to the file while still on my hard drive. This sound is faint and not strong enough to really disturb me, but what bothers me is the fact that I don't hear this on commercial CD's played on the same player. Since I'm in the process of converting 2 closets full of my precious LP collection of some 40 years, I might as well do it right. And I've realized there's no better place to ask for assistance than here. You young guy's are exceptionally good and helpful!

Here are the steps that I follow to make a music CD:

1. I make my recordings and save it in WAV format.
2. I use a CoolEdit WAVE editor to edit each file
a) run a de-clicking noise reduction pre-set (for clicks , Pops & crackle), Not too much!
B) Then I zoom in on the intro and cut the portion I don't need, leaving just about a quarter of a second gap for a clean start. I silence this portion (checking they are zero on both channels) and then "fade in" making sure I get to full volume when the music starts.
3) Then I go to the end/exit part, and do the same thing, aiming for a little longer, gradual "fade out". Then I always seal it with a hairline gap of silence to guard against noises/clicks.
4} I test play 3-5 sec of both ends to check that all is clean & well, and they are... before I save it!

I burn the files to a CDR using a Nero Burner, play it and I hear a faint click only at the end part of each song. GRRrrrrr.......

Have I missed something here?

-Dan

The first thing that comes into my mind is TAO burning. It always produces clicks at the end of tracks with some burners. Make sure, in Nero, that "Disc-At-Once" is selected as write method, not "Track-At-Once". If Disc At Once is not available, either your writer is mistaken for another (then update Nero), either your burner is a very old one (4x burning) that doesn't support Disc-At-Once (then get a new one).

But there definitely is something else that can be problematic in your way of doing things : your wavs have random lenghts, while a CD track must have a lenght that is an integer multiple of 588 in samples. Nero have been known to cut the end of wavs in order to reach the nearest 588 limit. If your silence is shorter than 588 samples (unlikely, 588 samples are 1/75th of a second), Nero will sometimes cut your fade out.
Other software will insert silence instead of cutting the tracks. But there can be a bug in the process. Sometimes there is a click in the added silence. We couldn't find the source of this bug. It occured to me with EAC and a Yamaha 6416S burner. It is burner dependant as well as software dependant.

The solution to burn wavs of random lenghts are expensive mastering software, like WaveLab or Samplitude; or CoolEdit or SoundForge with their CD Burning plugins. But there is one free shareware program that does it too : Feurio. The option must be enabled. It is called "do not insert silence, round track markers", IIRC. I don't use Feurio, so I don't know exactly where it is, but anyway, you should use Feurio to burn your wavs after they are properly edited, if you don't have access to something like the above software, because of the 588 samples problem.

I always burn music Cd's at Disk at Once. My system came with the Bero 5.5 version and tried Nero 6 but didn't like it so I reverted back to the last update Nero 5.51054.

Gee, Thanks for that very enlightening advice. I'll try Feurio 1.6. I'm scratching my head now, because I tried 2 other softwares, Musicmatch & Roxio Easy CD
with the same results. Now that you gave me some ideas to think about, I'll try them. I surely appreciate your input...

-Dan

Hi,

I need some clarification here...

At the CDWave website, I came across a portion of a Q-A
that probably relates to my problem of a "click sound" at the end of my CDR music recordings. Here's an excerpt:

Question:
Must I clip all my files to 2352 borders? Do you have a utility for this?

Answer:
No (2x). Splitting on 2352 borders makes sense, just clipping does not.
If the tracks have no relation, i.e. their sound is not continuous, the only way to avoid a click is to make sure that the first track ends in silence and the next starts with silence. You do not have to clip the wave, because the CDR software will pad the remainder of the last sector with silence.
----

If clipping means cutting, then this could probably be the reason why I'm having this problem. I always have a field day cutting some of the intro/exit portion of the WAV that I don't like. Then, afterwards, I would silence the remaining portion to get a clean start or exit. Maybe what I should do is just leave it as it is (after splitting the wave file) and just silence it (without cutting). Am I right here?

Please comment...

-Dan

No, there is no problem. As I said, it should be silent, exept if a bug comes in. I don't know how common it is.
Cutting and silencing or just silencing doesn't make any difference, you just have more silence in the second case.

Oh, er, how much silence do you leave at both ends ? You must leave an amount of silence longer than your drive offsets.

As an experiment, when you are done editing your files, use CDWave to trim the ends, both the start of the file and the end of the file. CDWave always cuts on sector boundries.

It's worth a try. It has worked for me on some files.

I'm quite lost here. I don't know what drive offset means. But after splitting the WAV file with CDwave, I trim the intro futher and leave just about a quarter of a second gap before the music starts. This portion is silenced completely. If I have to add a fade-in, I do it just right up where the music starts. At the end part, I fade it out, and leave about a quarter of a second gap that is completely silenced.
Oftentimes, I just completely silenced both ends without fading-in or out.

I also tried using Polderbits Editor that automatically trims the gap of both ends by a mouse click. It snips it gapless, or you can edit the gap to your desire, save it. When I burn it to CD, I still get the click.

All of my CD recordings have this faint click. I'm burning in DAO with Nero & I tried Feurio, Roxio ECDC 5, Musicmatch, with same results. I'll try the method with que sheets..

Thanks for all the trouble...

-Dan

That's a very smart move that could save me an extra frown lines.
One question, when you edited your WAV files did you manually cut some portions of it? Just curious.


I'll try your advice... Thanks!

-Dan

In the other thread, you said that you cut the files after they are trimmed. Thus they are no more cut at sector boundaries.
Using Feurio, did you find the option to handle gaps ? Did you change it to "round track markers" ?

Yes, I often edit sections out of the middle, and sometimes paste sections in. I always make "trimming the ends" the very last step.

Yes, after both sides of the record is completed, I split it into individual tracks manually with CDwave. Then I edit the tracks and cut portions that I don't need. Then I do other editing works as mentioned.

As for Feurio, that box "round track markers" had already a check mark, and that was what I was searching for because you told me so in your message.

I have a revelation here that got me more confused, and all night last night I wasn't able to sleep thinking about it.

I went to my friends house to show him some of my CD recordings I just finished (from Radio Programs during our freshmen High School years in the mid 1950s), from Reel Tapes I kept all these years. When I played it on his old CD player, I didn't hear any of those clicks at all. I was stunned and went back home right away, and tried to unearth my old CD players that was ready for disposal. I still found 3 top brand CD players made in 1990, in my basement. I tried my CD recordings in it and I didn't hear any clicks at all in all 3 of those old players!!! I tell you what friend, my mind has just stopped functioning I'm so tired figuring this out.

What's in these new top of the line, state of the art CD & DVD players that reads those clicks? I have 7 all in all (2 DVD, 3 new Cd players of some 2 years old) not to mention 2 new PC's, and all the portable CD devices of the kids. When you play my Cd's in any of them you'll hear those clicks! I'll tell ya more...

Thanks for your patience...

-Dan

If you selected "Do not insert pauses between tracks - round track markers" or linked all the tracks, then you won't get pauses unless the silences are inside the WAV files.

It's easy to check.
You have a "Play" button under the project, which will play your disc exactly as it's going to be burned.
And you have a "Track Editor" button to see the waves. There, you will see if the WAVs have silence or the sound is continuous.



If Feurio shows no pauses in the Track Editor of your project, then you can be sure that disc has no pauses.

Most programs fill the last sector with silence, but Feurio not.

Our Moderator reminded me about that and was fully aware that it should be enabled. If the default setting does'nt have that dot mark, then I might have placed it there. I need to put that mark there (Like I always do when I burn with Nero) because I already have a 2 second track silence in my WAV's after splitting it with CDwave.

But I always end up with strange clicks if I play my CD recordings on newer CD/DVD players. I don't hear these clicks on my 13 year old Sony, Technics, Denon, CD players. Strange no??? I am inviting some Hi tech engineers for lunch this weekend and explain to them this phenomena. Thanks for your concern.

-Dan

OK, I have seen a audio car player that added slight silences when changing track, but I've never seen it on a regular audio player.

You can make sure that the disc is correct by ripping it again. You will see that the WAVs have no silences and that the size and info are the same as the original WAVs.

It sounds like a defect in the burner. Old TAO CDs behaved exactly like this : the garbage burned between the tracks (unreadable pit/land) was played as silence in hifi players, and noise in CD ROM players.
If you rip the CD in EAC with C2 enabled, you will likely get one row of error correction at the end of each track, 99% quality, but no errors occured and CRC OK.
What would be interesting would be to rip your copies, and use EAC to compare wavs (tools menu) between the original ones (the one you burned) and the ripped ones.
You should get some repeated/missing samples (normal, because of offsets), but different samples too (real errors).

If this is the case, the burner does not burn properly.

The answer to all your problems and more are available on this excellent website i found by accident http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm